


Knight of Wands

by roughnscruff



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 03:09:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5727451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roughnscruff/pseuds/roughnscruff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Noah is nowhere to be found.  Adam is having ominous dreams about Cabeswater while Ronan isn't having any dreams at all. Gansey gets involved in Aglionby politics and Blue becomes somewhat of a hometown vigilante. It's going to be an interesting semester.</p><p>WIP. Updates irregularly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a WIP. This is also an AU that diverges on certain events and time frames, mostly during BLLB. I'll let you piece together the differences as you go along for spoilers sake. Thank you for reading. You can leave all your love and hate here in the comments or find me on tumblr at roughnscruff.tumblr.com

They were all gathered at Monmouth. Gansey sat in his desk chair, spun around to face the room, elbows on his knees, fingers worrying his bottom lip. Ronan leaned against the doorjamb of his room, hands in his pockets, eyebrows pulled together in annoyance at being summoned anywhere by anyone other than Gansey. Blue sat in the middle of Gansey's bed; she was distressing her already seriously distressed over shirt by pulling at random loose threads and pointedly not looking at Gansey as he played with his bottom lip.

"Where the _hell_ is Adam?" Ronan snarled and kicked his toes into the doorjamb he leaned against. Gansey gave him a withering look. "Ronan, _please_." Ronan scoffed at him and rolled his eyes.

"Persephone wasn't home when I left. " Blue stated simply. Gansey let out an appreciative whoosh of air and Ronan sighed.

"She does know he's not a psychic, right?" Ronan threw out there.

"We don't know exactly what Adam's full capabilities are." Gansey said with an air of reverence. Leave it to everything-mystical-loving Gansey to see that as a positive point.

Ronan knew better. He couldn't really rate special Cabeswater privileges _a 10/10, would ask for if not already thrust upon_. Except for the case of Richard Campbell Gansey III. Ronan Lynch was very grateful Cabeswater, or Glendower, or fuck, the line itself had gifted Gansey his special privilege. Ronan couldn't imagine living without him.

But Ronan pulled himself away from that line of thought as Monmouth's door opened and Adam walked in. He stopped in the middle of mini Henrietta, the grass stained kneecaps of his jeans level with the roofs of Main Street, and looked at the others one at a time. "What does Noah want?"

Gansey's hands left his lip and spread out in front of him as if to say, we don't know either. "If he makes us wait any longer he's going to want to watch his back so I don't throw him out the window... _again_." Ronan tried not to grin as Blue, Gansey, and Adam all gave him a variation of the same long suffering side eye.

Suddenly Noah was there though, as if called my Ronan's feigned shittiness, sitting by Blue on Gansey's bed. Maybe not sitting so much as existing from the waist up in a position that made him look like he was sitting on the bed normally.

Blue lay a hand on his shoulder, but Noah didn't become any less smudgy. Ronan thought he actually became a little more ghostly with the contact. He carefully looked at a place near Noah instead of directly at him.

Noah, however, was looking directly at Ronan.

"He's awake." Noah whispered, and suddenly he was gone again. The four of them looked silently between each other for a moment.

"The third sleeper?" Gansey asked, his voice quivered just an ounce. He looked at Ronan, no doubt he'd noticed that Noah's gaze had favored Ronan for the instance he was here instead of...there, or wherever. Ronan shrugged, trying to look like he didn't care.

Blue crawled her way out of the middle of Gansey's bed and sat on the edge to look at Adam. "Pull a card."

Adam nodded and started toward the door, knowing what she meant, "I left them in the car. Be right back."

Ronan pushed himself upright from his current position and walked into the bathroom. When he came back 30 seconds later with a whole carton of orange juice pressed to his lips he saw that Gansey had wasted no time in moving to the bed to whisper with Blue.

Blue grimaced at his decision to drink straight from the carton. Ronan winked at her. Blue groaned. Adam walked in a few seconds later, slightly out of breath like he'd sprinted up the stairs.

"Alright, everyone over here." Adam called and he knelt at the foot of the bed in the space between Gansey and Blue. Ronan moved close enough to see, but still kept enough distance that from the outside he would have looked like the ever present oddball who stood just outside a group of teenagers at school. He took another swig of orange juice.

Adam gave a third of the cards to Gansey and Blue each, keeping the rest for himself. Ronan was glad for Adam's small consideration. They all knew he didn't like the Tarot. "Shuffle," he instructed. "This involves all of us, so we all need to be involved."

"Ronan?" Gansey asked, but Adam shook his head. Blue and Adam shared a look. Gansey looked at Ronan quizically. Ronan shrugged and watched as they handed the newly shuffled cards back to Adam who then mixed them all together quickly.

Adam spread the cards out on the bed between Blue and Gansey. Blue placed a hand on Adam's right shoulder. Gansey appeared to consider this and after a brief pause also placed a hand on Adam's left shoulder. Ronan edged a little closer.

"Ready?" Adam asked from where he knelt with his hands on his knees by the bed. He looked at Gansey and Blue, who nodded.

Adam did not look at Ronan, but he subtly moved his right hand behind him and curled his fingers forward. Ronan quirked an eyebrow and inched closer until his foot bumped Adam's hand. Adam's hand immediately wrapped around Ronan's ankle.

Ronan was so taken by surprise he didn't notice Adam had chosen a card in the same moment. He just held the orange juice and his gaze burrowed into the back of Adam's dusty hair.

He didn't realize Blue and Gansey were looking at him until Adam released his leg and also turned to look him in the face. Ronan looked around them to see the one card that was now face up. The Knight of Wands.

They all looked at him expectantly. "Well I don't know what the fuck it means either!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI going forward, sometimes when the perspective changes time overlaps. Just thought I'd clear that up before we even got to it so there would be no confusion. :)

Maura Sargent loved her daughter.

Her daughter asked too many damn questions. She had been back home for a week and Blue was already bombarding her once again.

It had taken the others three weeks to find her, kneeling in front of an underground gate unable to pull herself away. Not a physical gate; it was just a crude archway hewn out of the stone in the cave of Ravens, but Maura had been unable to pass and unable to retreat.

Blue had held the flashlight and Coca-Cola and the Snake had carried her out together. The King and Calla had stayed at the entrance. Calla had kept touching the epi-pen Snake had given her that had the same feeling as himself and she thought to herself, _Snake boy has a heart after all_.

The first two days back at home the other members of 300 Fox Way had comforted Maura. They fed her and washed her hair for her and let her sleep. The third day they yelled. Well Calla yelled, Persephone's hair just looked like quivering cotton candy without colouring when she nodded along to what Calla was screeching.

On the fourth day Maura had awoken to Orla rummaging around in her closet. Without turning around, Orla answered the question Maura meant to ask. "Mom told me it's impolite to steal clothes from the living." _Hmm_ ,Maura had responded and fallen back to sleep.

On the fifth day she finally made it out of her room and walked downstairs to see a rather tall woman, who's hair beat out Persephone's, giggling as she pretended to ride the running vacuum cleaner like a witches broom. Later that day Mr. Gray had brought her chocolate and they'd spent a considerable amount of time making out. The sixth day was relatively normal. As normal as a day in 300 Fox Way could be.

Today Blue was asking her about the Knight of Wands.

"Adam feels like it's Ronan's card. Or like whatever Noah meant has something to do with Ronan. Gansey immediately thought of the third sleeper." Blue stopped for a second, "I think it's something else we haven't thought of yet."

Maura considered this. She asked for clarification on the situation again and nodded when Blue obliged.

"The card would make sense for Ronan--Adam's instincts are good. Tell Gansey not to worry so much. The third sleeper was still asleep a week ago when you pulled me out of that cave." Maura made herself one of her footy teas for clarification.

"I'll need to think on this longer. Let me talk with Persephone and Calla, see what they think."

"Okay, I'll let them know."

\-----

As much as Blue hated high school she was enjoying her senior year so far. She'd signed up for a program that let her get "intern experience" early. All that really meant was she got to miss the last three periods of school and go to work instead. This way she could work more and have extra time with her raven boys and the ley line. The tips weren't as good as if she were waiting on Aglionby boys, but the extra hours Monday through Friday during the slow times before school let out made it alright.

She was sitting on the bench reading outside Nino's, wrapped in a shawl Persephone had knitted from what looked to be approximately 49 different colours of yarn, waiting for the bright orange of the Pig to pull up in her vision. Instead she heard, "Hey, maggot! Get in!"

She looked up to see the BMW and Ronan's shit-eating grin below a pair of white sunglasses, his arm slung out the window. Very reminiscent of a typical raven boy.

"Oh, Ronan, you charmer..." From the way his grin widened he had taken it as a compliment. Blue needed to work on putting more venom in her Ronan-targeted compliments. She pulled open the passenger door and slid in.

"Where's Gansey?" Ronan turned the radio up. _Squash one, squash two..._ Blue turned the radio off. Ronan sighed but didn't turn it back on.

"He's doing that thing for Henry Chen. Totally forgot about it until Henry caught him in the parking lot." Ronan smoothly took a curve that led down the hill into downtown and turned toward Monmouth.

"He knew I didn't give a shit about it so he sent me instead. I know, it's such a privilege. Please carefully catalogue your brief time in my beautiful car. Maggots aren't normally allowed."

Blue punched him in the arm to which Ronan laughed and the sound carried them into the parking lot of Monmouth. They made their way inside and up the stairs in relative silence. Once inside, Blue flopped onto Gansey's bed and Ronan walked into his room to feed Chainsaw. Blue didn't wait for him to return.

"Mom thinks Adam might be right about the card." Ronan grunted from his room. Blue continued, "That it might represent you."

Ronan strode back into the main room and stood at the end of the bed above her head, crossing his arms. Blue stared at him upside down.

"If that's the case, Noah's got a shit sense of humour." He twirled the leather bracelets around one wrist. "Hey guys! I've got something important to tell you! Ronan's awake!" Ronan yelled in a mocking voice reminiscent of Noah's. He sighed, "Yea, no shit..."

Blue didn't chastise him. Instead she said, "I think it's something else."

Ronan cocked his head to the side. "The third sleeper." He'd meant it to sound like a question, but it came out a statement.

"Mom doesn't think that's it either," Blue sighed. "Have you seen Noah since he-"

Ronan shook his head, interrupting her. "No."

 _Hmm._ It was a shared sound between them. Ronan sat down softly next to Blue's head. It was one of the most gentle movements she'd seen him make. She knew that meant he was actively worried.

Gansey had told her as much. _When Ronan is seriously worried and doesn't know what he can do, he gets softer around the edges. At least that's what I've seen._ Blue thought it was probably true, but Blue thought everything Gansey said was probably true on some level, at some time.

She had a thought, "Has Cabeswater seemed different lately?"

Ronan laughed once, sharp. "We haven't been lately. How should I know?"

Blue considered. "You haven't dreamed lately?"

A strange expression crossed his face for half a second and then it was gone. "No. Not that much."

Blue sat up to look him in the eyes. "Don't you think that's odd? In and of itself? Considering, I mean."

Ronan didn't look her in the eye. He stood and walked toward his room. "Not in the slightest." He slammed the door.

Blue sighed and let her head fall back to the bed with a _thwump._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters keep getting longer and longer guys

Adam had spent a lot of time with Ronan lately. Or maybe it was the other way around. Whichever way it was, it was no surprise to him when he drove into the St. Agnes parking lot after work that he parked the Hondayota next to Ronan's sleek BMW. He pulled his backpack off the seat next to him and climbed the stairs to his apartment slowly, which was as fast as he could go after a full day of school and work.

The door was already unlocked, as it always was when Ronan was there, and Adam was thankful for one less hindrance between himself, the shower, and then bed. As he swung the door inward and stepped over the threshold he saw Ronan raise himself onto his elbows from where he'd been laying on his back on Adam's bed. " _ Et domus redeo!" _ Ronan grinned and waggled his eyebrows at Adam.

Adam chuckled and threw his backpack onto his desk chair before turning and closing the door behind him. "What's up, Lynch?" he asked as he began to kneel down to undo his shoe laces. He winced a bit as his back bent forward. Ronan  _ tsk _ 'd and sat up fully. "Come here, Parrish. Bring the chair." Adam eyed him warily but knocked his backpack to the floor and drug the chair over to the bed and sat down.

Ronan apparently thought he'd brought the chair too close because he planted his foot on the edge of the seat between Adam's legs and scooted the chair, occupant and all, backwards a bit. He then patted his thigh and looked at Adam's foot. Adam was too tired to protest that he could, in fact, untie his own shoe laces. He lifted a foot into Ronan's lap and watched the other boy work the knots out of his laces. 

As tired as he was, watching Ronan work to untie his laces took an interesting route. Adam's gaze wandered unabashed over Ronan's features and he didn't have the energy to scold himself for it. 

Adam noticed for the first time a tiny bald spot on Ronan's scalp, probably a scar he'd obtained somehow during the time before Gansey reined him in after his father's death. He noted that at some point Ronan had had an ear pierced, though Adam had never seen him with anything in. 

Adam also let himself appreciate the way Ronan had cut the arms out of this shirt lower than most and the way tendrils of ink crept their way from their origin on his back to peak out from underneath the cover of the shirt and reach for his ribs. 

Once Ronan had finished one side, he pulled the shoe off and threw it at the door where it thudded to the floor. Adam lifted his other foot into Ronan's lap.

"You know you don't-" Adam started to say, merely to keep up appearances. 

"Shut up, Parrish." Ronan cut him off, but it didn't sound harsh. 

Sometimes Adam wished he sounded more harsh. It would be easier to feign that he was forced into these situations where he let Ronan take care of him. The truth felt more dangerous to Adam.

He watched Ronan's brows furrow as he struggled with Adam's ridiculously tangled shoe strings. Ronan looked up at Adam through his eyelashes, "Did no one ever teach you how to tie your shoes, because these are a mess..." Ronan had meant it as a joke, not thinking that it might be true. Adam let out the kind of cough one makes when they are uncomfortable with a situation. Ronan swore lightly under his breath as he pulled Adam's other shoe off.

Ronan stood and started to grab his jacket. Adam watched him cautiously.  _ Should I just let him go?  _ Adam wasn't sure if it was a Cabeswater thing or if it was just that he was paying more attention lately but he'd begun to notice that while Ronan's face was usually a clear mask, his back was not. It revealed all sort of things about how Ronan felt. His shoulders pulled up toward his ears when he was hurt. They pulled back and down when he was angry, his shoulder blades protruding remarkably. Right now they were somewhere between the two. Hurt and angry. Probably angry at himself. Ronan was always angry at himself.

Adam stood and walked toward the bathroom. "Stay," he said, and hoped that in his exhaustion it sounded at least a little commanding. He didn't look to see if Ronan paused, just closed the door and turned the water on.  _ Either he will or he won't. _

\-----

Ronan was still there when Adam got out of the shower. How could he leave when Adam had said  _ stay?  _ Ronan wouldn't say no to most commands from Adam. He worried if that had anything to do with Cabeswater. It had a hold in his dreams; so did Adam. But Cabeswater also had a hold in Adam. It told Adam things, asked him to do things. Ronan had to ask to know things, and even then Cabeswater chose not to tell him half the time. It was confusing. Ronan pushed it from his mind.

Ronan slid himself from Adam's bed to the floor as Adam walked toward the bed. Adam's brow furrowed. "What?" Ronan made it sound like an accusation.

Adam sighed. "You hardly stay at Monmouth anymore." Ronan immediately took it the wrong way.

"I thought you said stay, make up your fucking mind." He surged upward from the floor and grabbed his keys. Adam rolled his eyes behind Ronan's back.

"Ronan, listen to me."

"Fuck off, Parrish."

"Ronan  _ Niall _ ," Ronan froze. "Get your ass back over here."

Ronan hated hearing his middle name; his father's name. When spoken aloud the syllables made him feel like every cell in his body was being individually lit up by an electric cattle prod over and over again and would be for the rest of time. 

He expected to feel like this because of Matthew, who needed to hear their father's name spoken, or Declan, who used it to wield power over Ronan when he wouldn't cooperate, but he'd never expected to feel like this because of Adam.

He would have never imagined Adam Parrish, of all people, to be the kind of man to use someone's father against them. For a split second Ronan wanted to use Adam's own father against him as well. He wanted to yell that he was worthless. He wished there was enough liquor on his lips as he said the words that Adam could smell it from across the room. He wanted to throw his keys at Adam's head and leave a mark.

Ronan was terrified the thoughts had even occurred to him. He'd have to spend some time downstairs in the chapel begging for forgiveness after thoughts like that. 

Ronan took a deep breath and slowly turned around to drop his keys back on Adam's desk. He swiftly strode across the room to loom over Adam at the bed, trying to use the one extra inch he had over Adam to his advantage. He realised he was shaking. 

"You  _ don't _ get to do that." His voice was poison and he crowded Adam, their chests brushing.

Adam didn't move, just stared him down. Their eyes flitted back and forth between each other’s pupils. Ronan's resolve began to falter and after a moment he backed off a little. Maybe Adam wasn't as fragile as he'd once been. Ronan was proud of him. Adam sat down and pulled on Ronan's leather bracelets until he too, sat.

"What I meant, was that you spend so much time here, on the floor. At the Barns, in a chair in an actual  _ barn."  _ Adam looked weary, but not the same kind that he had earlier. This time it seemed  _ deeper.  _ "You never sleep in your bed anymore. If you're going to stay here you’re at least going to stay in a bed."

Ronan laughed. How could he not? Adam had used his father against him in order to try to take care of him. Adam let him laugh. 

Finally Ronan turned to Adam. “You only have one bed here, Parrish.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “You can sleep in mine.”

"I'm not taking your bed, you need it. I'll just go back to Monmouth." Ronam stood.

"You are so dense sometimes." Adam didn't stand, but he did reach an arm around Ronan's waist to hold him in place. 

Ronan’s entire  _ existence _ went still. His brain fogged over at the touch and he let himself be pulled back down. Adam's hand slid from where it had been over Ronan's stomach to his chest, just over his heart. Ronan wanted to scream. He couldn't breathe and he had to close his eyes lest they betray him. 

Adam gave his chest a soft push and Ronan laid down on the bed. He inched his way back until his shoulder blades hit the wall. He wasn't sure if he was trying to run away from being found out or actually give Adam the room he needed to lay down. When he had the room, Adam laid down in front of him and trapped Ronan between his back and the wall.

Since he couldn't run, Ronan reached up to the bedside table to turn off the lamp there, the only light Adam ever used unless he was studying and needed the extra light. With his back to the wall and the warmth of Adam radiating along the front of him Ronan closed his eyes. 

He realized he didn't want to run. He still hurt after hearing his father's name, but it had ended up getting Adam what he wanted. Ronan was letting Adam take care of him tonight. Funny how the boy, no,  _ man _ , who'd never been taken care of was apparently an expert at taking care of Ronan.


	4. Chapter 4

“Noah, are you here? I’m home,” Gansey called out as he walked through the door of Monmouth. He toed out of his boat shoes and hung his bookbag on its hook by the door.

“No Noah. Just me.” Blue called from around the half-wall and frosted glass partition that blocked the ‘kitchen’ from the front door’s view.

“Ah, Jane.” Gansey smiled and walked toward his desk to pluck a mint leaf from the plant sitting there.

“Hey, Dick.” Blue smirked as she walked fully into view.

Gansey rolled his eyes and sat at his desk chair. Blue looked as interesting as ever this afternoon. She wore dirty pink high-tops, black tights covered in crescent moons of varying hues over which she had acid wash short shorts, and finally a t-shirt which proclaimed, _ain’t no shame ladies do your thang._

Gansey took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Ronan?” he asked.

Blue sat on the end of Gansey’s bed before answering. “He left an hour ago or more.”

Gansey _hmm_ ’d before responding. “Did he say where he was going?”

“Does Ronan ever say where he’s going?” Blue replied before Gansey had fully finished his question.

“Right you are, Jane.”

Gansey realised that this was a slippery situation for the two of them to be in. Usually, when Jane was at Monmouth Noah supervised them. In fact, if Jane was at Monmouth it was almost a law that Noah be present, if for no other reason than Blue made it easier for him to join in. Without Noah present Gansey felt strongly as though it was his duty to keep things steered in a non-kissing direction.

“What’s on your mind?” Blue’s question pulled Gansey from his thoughts and he looked back up at her. He’d been bothering his lower lip and not realised it.

“Hmm, oh, it’s just odd for you to be present and Noah to not be.” Gansey’s brow furrowed. “I’m sure he’s just at the gas station looking at snow globes again.” He hoped his tone sounded unbothered.

Blue smiled at him and Gansey didn’t acknowledge the knowing glint in her eyes. She let his worry slide and continued onward. “I asked my mom about the Knight of Wands.”

Gansey sat up straighter in his chair. “Oh, what did she have to say about it?” And then, as an afterthought, asked, “How is Maura, by the way?”

Blue tilted her head as she always seemed to do when Gansey called adults by their names. “She thinks it may be about Ronan, but she wants to talk with Persephone and Calla, of course.” She smiled then added, “She’s doing well.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Gansey smiled at her fondly. He stood and removed his Aglionby sweater before draping it over the chair back and pulling the shirt tails of his button up free of his khakis.

Blue whistled long and low. “Hey now, are you putting on a free show? I didn’t bring any bills with me.”

Gansey whipped his head around to face her as his mouth dropped open. Finally he managed to stammer out an indignant, “ _Jane_!”

Blue cackled and fell backwards onto his bed as she clutched her stomach in an abundant display of amusement. Gansey huffed and stomped past her to get a green tea from the bathroom fridge.

“I’m going to have to disallow you and Ronan from spending time alone together if this is the sort of thing he imparts on you.”

Blue looked wholeheartedly unconcerned and steered the conversation away from her less than wholesome joke.

“Ronan said you couldn’t pick me up because you were meeting with Henry.” Gansey nodded minutely as he took a drink of his tea and Blue continued, “What was the meeting about?”

Gansey screwed the lid back onto the tea and fidgeted for a second with the ring of plastic left on the rim after opening it. Blue waited him out.

“It will make you angry,” he finally sighed.

“Don’t sugar coat things for me. Go on, Gansey.” Blue waved a hand for him to continue.

“As you know, Aglionby has a charity ball every winter and the proceeds from tickets go to whichever charity the school board has deemed most likely to boost its image that year.” Blue nodded, so he continued in a rushed attempt to get it all out as quickly as possible. “This year they want to give the proceeds to Kavinsky’s family.”

“They want to do _what_?” Blue’s tone was seething and Gansey would admit he was a bit afraid to face her.

He nodded, “Yes, that was Henry’s reaction as well.” He paused to have another drink of his tea before explaining and watched Blue stand up and begin pacing. “He’s starting a petition to have the charity changed. His reasoning is that the Kavinsky’s have plenty of money and there is another more effective way for the academy to show its sympathy.”

“You did sign it, right?” Blue stopped pacing to stare at him.

“Jane, of course...” Gansey was taken aback that she felt she had to ask.

“Good.” She declared as she walked past him to grab her coat from the rack by the door. “Let’s go eat, I’m hangry.”

Gansey nodded and grabbed a coat and his keys before stepping back into his shoes and following her out the door.

 

\-----

 

Ronan Lynch was used to having nightmares that could manifest beside him and then kill him, so his body wasn't in the habit of letting him sleep for more than a few hours at a time. It wasn't a surprise when he woke for the first time that it was still night.

It was, of course, dark and it took him a few minutes to realise that his eyes were looking at the back of Adam's neck and not the space underneath Adam's bed. He didn't dare move an inch, lest he wake Adam and break this gift he'd been given.

He found that he was still tired; exhausted even as he strained his neck for a look at Adam's alarm clock and it told him he'd had roughly three hours of sleep. He took a deep breath, which turned into a deep yawn, and enjoyed the way his hot exhales stirred the finer tufts of hair at the nape of Adam's neck and infused the next breath with the scent of him.

During a brief moment of intense self-hatred Ronan considered moving his left arm from where it had fallen between their bodies and draping it across Adam's waist. He couldn't deal with the thought of causing the sense of invasion Adam would surely feel upon waking to find Ronan's arm presumptuously thrown over him, so he abandoned the idea.

Instead, he managed to move his right arm out from under himself and position it so that his fingers could just barely brush through Adam's hair. It would be much easier to feign using this arm as a pillow than to explain away his outright spooning of Adam.

Satisfied that his position against Adam wasn't crossing too many lines, Ronan let himself settle down into Adam’s well worn mattress. With his fingertips brushing gently back and forth against Adam's hair, Ronan drifted back to dreamless sleep.

 

\-----

 

Adam opened his eyes to the faint glow of Cabeswater at night. Dim light seemed to outline the leaves on the unmoving tree branches above him as he sat up to look around.

He was sitting by Gansey's pond, the one where he had controlled the color of the school of fish, only it had ceased to hold water and Gansey's fish were nowhere to be seen.

Adam tried not to let the pond’s appearance bother him, but it was difficult when he was here on unfamiliar terms. Cabeswater had never visited him in a dream before, merely in whispers and glimpses while he was awake. He considered that maybe it always appeared like this in dreams, devoid of the more cheerful aspects, and perhaps that's why Ronan usually described his visits as nightmares. Maybe it was the creatures that constantly tried to kill him; Adam decided it was probably the latter.

Adam stood slowly and took in the rest of his surroundings. This portion of Cabeswater didn't look much different than it did when he was awake, other than the dried pond. The trees were full of foliage and the grass was tall like it was the middle of summer, but Adam shivered in a cold that seemed to accompany the strange light filtering down through the leaves.

“What's going on?” he said softly. Adam’s own voice made him aware that the forest was eerily silent. He waited so long for a reply he was almost certain that he wouldn't get one but the branches eventually began to sway and the trees slowly spoke.

“ _Oculus… ac… Manibus…”_

“Yes, I'm h-here. What d-do you need me t-to do?” Adam’s teeth chattered against one another when he asked. The temperature seemed to be dropping lower even as the appearance of summer remained and Adam's worn thin pajamas didn't provide the insulation he wished they would.

Again, Cabeswater took its time replying and Adam began to worry that the forest was having difficulty amassing the energy to communicate with him. He couldn't feel the pulse of the ley line as strongly beneath his feet as he'd grown accustomed to after beginning to mend it to over the summer.

“ _Greywaren…”_

“What about R-Ronan? Is he in d-danger?”

If Adam wasn't worried before he definitely was now. If Ronan was in immediate danger Cabeswater should have just woken Adam up. With Ronan suddenly on his mind he realised he could feel the line of Ronan's body pressed against his, like an apparition, back in the real world.

“ _Ac… prae-_ ” Cabeswater continued to explain, but Adam was already waking up.

 

\-----

 

Sunlight streamed in through the tiny window of Adam’s apartment, illuminating the dust motes that danced in the current from the overhead fan. The light fell through the wooden patterns of Adam’s headboard and highlighted his dusty brown hair with flecks of gold.

Ronan swore to himself that this was a dream. He’d been here in dreams before; in this bed, his cheek resting against Adam’s shoulder with the fabric of Adam’s shirt pulling his stubble in the wrong direction.

Honestly, how could it be real? Ronan didn’t deserve this, especially after the thoughts he’d had the night before, and yet here he was, laying against Adam in his bed. Warm. Content. Happy.

Getting punched in the face as Adam yelled his name.

“Ronan!” Adam’s torso surged upright, his arms swinging wildly in search of Ronan.

“ _Jesus,_ Adam!” Ronan swore as he brought a hand to his face to check the damage Adam’s violent awakening had done.

Adam seemed to collect himself somewhat and his crazed yet sleep-bleary eyes finally focused on Ronan for half a second. “Are you alright?” He craned his neck to take a look around the room before hurriedly standing and heading to the door of the apartment and checking that the lock was in place. He then marched to the bathroom and leaned in for a look.

Ronan didn’t know what Adam was having a fit over, but he pulled himself forward from the wall and let his feet hang off the bed, his toes grazing the floorboards, before answering. “I’m fine,” his tone cautious, before adding, “Are _you_ alright?”

Adam, after pulling the shower curtain aside, seemed content that his apartment was not actively trying to kill them and turned to face Ronan. “I’m fi-” he paused in the middle of his word, eyebrows furrowing together, and stepped toward Ronan. “You’re bleeding,” he said instead.

Ronan looked down at himself just in time to see a drop of blood fall from his lip on to his grey shirt. The drop immediately absorbed into the fabric. He raised his fingers to his lip and winced when the pressure pulled on his bust lip.

“How did that happen?” Ronan could hear Adam swallow nervously after the words left his mouth from across the room.

“Well you punched me in the face when you woke up, dickwad...” Ronan let the last word drag on, probably a side effect of transitioning from bliss to bleeding in under 15 seconds.

Adam’s face drained of colour. “I didn’t mean to…”

“I know,” Ronan sighed and waved a hand in dismissal before standing to get a paper towel from beside the tiny kitchenette sink. He folded it in half a few times before gently pressing it to his lip. The cheap paper towel stung where it touched his open wound but it was better than bleeding on himself and Adam’s floor.

Adam made his way back to his bed and flopped backwards onto it. Ronan leaned back against the counter and waited for Adam to explain. After a few minutes of silence between them he had to ask.

“Was it a dream?”

Adam’s features scrunched together for a minute before he answered, “Yes.”

“Nightmare?”

“Maybe?” The uncertainty was clear in Adam’s tone.

“Maybe it was a nightmare?” Ronan lifted a single eyebrow, “Most people know if they’re having a nightmare, Adam.”

Adam shrugged his shoulders and then propped himself up onto his elbows so he could face Ronan. “I was in Cabeswater.”

Ronan tried his best to pretend like he wasn’t going to explode with the thought of Adam possibly getting attacked by nightmares in Cabeswater, “Oh?”

“It was...odd,” Adam looked away and watched the dust motes dance in the light for a moment, “It told me you might be in danger.”

Ronan smirked, “So you decided to wake up and become that danger? Thanks.”

He received a withering look for his comment, “I said I was _sorry_.”

“I know, but you know me,” Ronan shrugged nonchalantly.

Adam turned to face him fully. “I do.”

Ronan spun around to the sink and cut on the water to wash his lip so Adam wouldn’t see him blush. He removed his leather straps to save them from bloody water and then checked the temperature with his fingers before starting to clean the wound. Ronan couldn't find any response to Adam's declaration which wouldn't brand him with a bright scarlet letter. Which letter was appropriate he didn't know, but he knew it would be telling.

Once he was certain the colour in his cheeks had faded and his lip was clean of excess blood he turned around and found Adam's gaze had been intensely trained on him throughout the whole silence. Ronan glanced at Adam's alarm clock so he wouldn't have to lock eyes with Adam again. “Shit. I've gotta go and change or I'll be late for class and Gansey will _actually_ kill me.” Ronan clapped his hands together before making his way across the room to shrug himself into his jacket and pull on his shoes.

Ronan's clap broke whatever hold he seemed to have over Adam and Adam turned to look at the clock on the nightstand beside him. “Yea, I guess I need to get ready too,” Adam frowned before adding, “I forgot it was still a school day.”

“I'll see you there, then?” Ronan asked with his hand on the doorknob.

Adam nodded, “See you there.”


End file.
